What’s happening: As required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a report on several aspects of the Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCaH) initiative, which provided waivers that allowed individual hospitals to give inpatient-level care in the home environment.
What else to know: The waiver program launched during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), and the CAA extended it beyond the PHE’s end, allowing it to continue through Dec. 31 of this year.
The report includes analysis of the demographic characteristics and clinical conditions of patients served through AHCaH, quality of care indicators, and a comparison of cost and utilization between brick-and-mortar inpatient services (patients in a physical hospital) and AHCaH.
The analysis found that AHCaH beneficiaries generally had a lower mortality rate, and comparative readmission rates differed based on Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups.
AHCaH inpatient episodes had a slightly longer length of stay (less than one day) and significantly lower Medicare spending in the 30 days post-discharge. However, differences in patient selection criteria limit the ability to conclude that overall spending was less for AHCaH patients than brick-and-mortar inpatients.
The report went on to discuss patient experiences, as well as future considerations for AHCaH. An additional extension of the waiver, allowing for continued operation and analysis beyond Dec. 31, may be considered during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress.